mek

Oh dear - every once in a while I make a mistake - not very often, but it does happen occasionally - lol. I haven't received my old passport back yet, but I looked at my husband's which was issued at the same time and you are totally correct - he did sign on a separate page. The first two pages on my new passport are different though - the laminated page is very heavy and printed in black and white,(used to be in color), and the signature page now has a color photo on it. I guess those changes made me think the signature part was different.

That's strange because my last passport was issued in 2014 and the signature was part of the laminated page.

At that point I would have been bitting my nails as my next cruise is the end of September and three months would have been cutting it close. Also, just a minor FYI, you must now sign the passport on a separate page once it is received - the signature is no longer laminated along with the photo.

I mailed my application for renewal 3 weeks ago and received my new passport today. I didn't pay extra to expedite. I expected it to take longer since it's the beginning of summer, but I think this is the fastest return I've ever experienced.

I am on the same cruise and traveling with a friend. We booked our air last week and paid $435 each including taxes and insurance. We are flying in the day before -Air Canada from Cincinnati, with a connection in Toronto before arrival in Quebec and flying home on Delta NS from LaGuardia the day of arrival in NY. I'm on the Sept 25th cruise - Quebec to NY - you mentioned September and I may be mistaken about which cruise you're on.

Yes - I have done several of those, but they all have free time and some on your own evenings.

My husband and I traveled all over the world and I was a road warrior with my job, so being by myself and dining alone isn't the problem, but I think I agree with you - a cruise would be much better for this part of the world.

Yep $20 for photo + $10 to mail, but at lest they last for 10 years.

Well --- I looked it up and the web site says $130 for standard processing and that's what I mailed along with the paperwork, so I certainly hope that is the correct amount.

I'm also considering a cruise to Japan, but since I will be traveling alone I will have to pay the single supplement, which is generally more than on a land based tour. But like security of being on a ship rather than being alone in a strange city. When my husband was alive, we did several bus tours in Europe and there were always some nights when we were on our own. Not sure that appeals to me in a country as different as Japan is to Westerners.

Well fortunately it was a Caribbean cruise, so just in case, I took my birth certificate with me, which would have worked it the passport had been a problem.

Wow - that seems crazy. I will start tracking mine in a few weeks and hopefully I won't be in panic mode sometime in August.

Well, the packet it in the mail w/o paying for expedited processing , so looks I'll just keep my fingers grossed. Thankfully fingerprints are not required - it took me forever to get TSA approval and the only reason I can think of is that my fingerprints are not very defined. I've had problems with them for other background checks that require fingerprints, (volunteer work), and the machine can't "read" my prints.

The experience I had with my passport expiring one week after returning on a closed loop cruise was not on NCL, so not speaking from experience on that particular cruise line.

And my original question was do I have up to 3 days prior to sailing to enter all of my information into the system? Perhaps not NCL specific, as I think that is probably SOP for all cruises, at least in N America.